Share this @internewscast.com
Zelenskiy: Russia wants to turn Ukraine into ‘silent slaves’
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenksiy, has now finished speaking to the UN security council in New York. Here are some more details from his address:
He accused Russia of “supporting hatred at the level of the state” and exporting it to other countries “through their system of propaganda and political corruption”.
They provoked a global food crisis that could lead to famine in Africa, Asia, and other countries. They will surely, and in large scale, [lead to)] political chaos in many countries and destroy their domestic security.
Every UN member state should be interested in how the organisation will choose to act in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Zelenskiy continued.
Russia’s leadership echoes the actions of “colonisers in ancient times”, he says, starting with the looting of food and “gold earrings that are pulled out and covered with blood”.
They need our wealth, our people.
Russia has already deported hundreds of thousands of our citizens to their country. They abducted more than 2,000 children. They just abducted those children and continue to do so. Russia wants to turn Ukraine into silent slaves.
The Russian military are looting openly the cities and villages that they have captured. This is why it’s called looting. They are stealing everything, starting with food and earrings. Gold earrings that are pulled out and covered with blood.
The US and its allies are planning more sanctions on Russia.
The AP reports:
The new penalties will include a ban on all new investment in Russia.
Among the other measures being taken against Russia are greater sanctions on its financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, and sanctions on government officials and their family members, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “The goal is to force them to make a choice,” she said. “The biggest part of our objective here is to deplete the resources that Putin has to continue his war against Ukraine.”
Separately, the Treasury Department moved Tuesday to block any Russian government debt payments with U.S. dollars from accounts at U.S. financial institutions, making it harder for Russia to meet its financial obligations.
President Joe Biden and U.S. allies have worked together to levy a crippling of economic penalties against Russia for invading Ukraine more than a month ago, including the freezing of central bank assets, export controls and the seizing of property, including yachts, that belong to Russia’s wealthy elite. But calls for increased sanctions intensified this week in response to the attacks, killings and destruction in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.
The sanctions are intended to further Russia’s economic, financial and technological “isolation” from the rest of the world as a penalty for its attacks on civilians in Ukraine, Psaki said. That isolation is a key aspect of the U.S. strategy, which is premised on the idea that Russia will ultimately lack the resources and equipment to keep fighting a prolonged war in Ukraine.
Psaki said the administration is assessing “additional consequences and steps we can put in place” but underscored that Biden is not weighing any military action.
An increasingly desperate Russia has engaged in military tactics that have outraged much of the wider global community, leading to charges that it is committing war crimes and causing other sanctions.
Still, almost all of the EU has refrained from an outright ban on Russian oil and natural gas that would likely crush the Russian economy. The U.S. has banned fossil fuels from Russia, while Lithuania blocked natural gas from that country on Saturday, becoming the first of the 27-member EU to do so. The EU executive branch on Tuesday proposed a ban on Russian coal, while Germany’s government intends to end its use of Russian natural gas over the next two years.
Russia’s war in Ukraine: complete guide in maps, video and pictures
Where is fighting happening and how did we get here?
Andrew Roth, Dan Sabbagh, Paul Scruton, Harvey Symons, Finbarr Sheehy, Glenn Swann and Niels de Hoog report:
‘I couldn’t keep it inside’: ballet star Olga Smirnova on quitting the Bolshoi
Lyndsey Winship
“My life totally changed in one day,” says Olga Smirnova. “In the morning, I did not know I was going to leave Russia. And in the night, I was sitting on the plane.” The 30-year-old dancer was one of the Bolshoi Ballet’s star ballerinas, a universally lauded performer at the peak of her powers, at a company that has long had close ties to the Kremlin. Earlier this month, she made a shock announcement: she had joined Dutch National Ballet (DNB), leaving Moscow behind. The move came shortly after Smirnova wrote a heartfelt post on the online messaging service Telegram about Russia’s attack on Ukraine. “With all the fibres of my soul I am against the war,” she wrote. “I never thought that I would be ashamed of Russia … But now the line is drawn on the before and after.”
Speaking via video call from Amsterdam, she explains her reason for leaving: “It did not feel safe.” Although there had been no direct threat from the authorities, she adds: “I just felt the atmosphere was tense in the country. International flights were being cancelled and there were rumours the borders would be closed, so we decided to leave. We didn’t want to risk it and wait longer.”
She knew making such a statement would put her in the spotlight. Why did she do it? “I don’t know,” she says. “I just felt I needed to speak out. I couldn’t keep it inside. There were many artists who spoke out. I admire Russian literature. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are my favourite writers and you learn from their example that you must speak honestly and openly.”
Smirnova barely heard from her Bolshoi colleagues, save for a couple of “supportive and touching” messages. “People are afraid to speak out. If they don’t have any choice but to stay, they prefer not to speak out. Everyone should be able to decide what type of society they want to live in and how much freedom one needs for living.”
Read more:
A record number of Ukrainians want Ukraine to be a member of the European Union according to a new poll, reports Reuters.
The number of Ukrainians who want their country to join the European Union rose to a record high of 91% by the end of March but support for joining Nato fell, a poll by the Rating research agency showed on Tuesday.
Support for EU membership mostly has hovered around 60% for the past three years but started climbing steeply after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, according to Rating, one of Ukraine’s main independent pollsters.
The invasion – the biggest assault on a European state since the second world war – spurred Ukraine to apply for fast-track EU membership, and EU countries have implemented sweeping sanctions on Russia and welcomed refugees fleeing the war.
Read the full article here (paywall).
Here is the video message from earlier today of UK prime minister Boris Johnson pleading with Russian forces to share reports of “atrocities” their troops are committing in Ukraine.
The Russian army said today that it shot down two Ukrainian helicopters evacuating nationalist battalion leaders from Mariupol, reports AFP.
The Russian army said Tuesday it had shot down two Ukrainian helicopters trying to evacuate the leaders of a nationalist battalion defending the embattled port of Mariupol.
“This morning, April 5, around Mariupol, a new attempt by the Kyiv regime to evacuate leaders of the nationalist Azov battalion was aborted. Two Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters, trying to reach the city from the sea, were shot down by portable anti-aircraft systems,” defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
He said Moscow had on Tuesday morning proposed that Ukrainian fighters lay down their arms and leave the city “via an agreed route” to territory under Kyiv’s control.
He said the Ukrainian army had “ignored” the proposal.
“Since Kyiv is not interested in saving the lives of its soldiers, Mariupol will be freed from nationalists,” said Konashenkov.
Last week, he said the Russian army had shot down a Ukrainian helicopter over the Sea of Azov that had come to evacuate commanders of the Azov battalion, which has been fiercely defending Mariupol for weeks.
Sergei Lavrov – war graves ‘a provocation’
Russia foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said today that mass graves discovered in Bucha were a “provocation” meant to stall peacekeeping talks between Russia and Ukraine, reported AFP.
In a video message broadcast on Russian television, Lavrov said:
A question arises: What purpose does this blatantly untruthful provocation serve? We are led to believe it is to find a pretext to torpedo the ongoing negotiations.
Lavrov added that the situation in Bucha, which many are calling evidence of war crimes committed by Russia, are meant to “distract attention from the negotiation process, distract attention from the fact that the Ukrainian party, after Istanbul, has started to row back, tried to put forward new conditions”.
Talks between Russia and Ukraine have continued after the top diplomats from the two countries met last month in Turkey.
3,846 people have been evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors today, reports Reuters.
In an online post, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that 3,846 have been evacuated, up from 3,376 who were evacuated yesterday.
⚡️More than 3,000 people evacuated on April 4.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that 3,376 people, mostly from Mariupol, Berdyansk and Zaporizhia region, have been safely evacuated.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 5, 2022
Daniel Boffey
Fresh allegations of atrocities by occupying troops have emerged as a Ukrainian man described three days and nights of torture, mock executions and the disappearance of fellow prisoners during his captivity by Russian forces in the town of Borodyanka.
Petro Titenko, 45, told the Guardian of his three nights of hell at the hands of Russian and Chechen soldiers after he was picked up for breaking curfew, during which he was beaten, forced to kneel in what he was told was his grave and had bullets shot at his head and feet.
Titenko, his wife, Yulia, and his 21-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter had been forced to move from central Borodyanka to Druzhnya, on the town’s outskirts, on 26 February after a shell blew away the roof of their home. But their hell was yet to truly begin, they said.
In Druzhnya, the couple hunkered down day and night in their cellar, aware, they said, that any civilians outside were being killed. But on the evening of 18 March Titenko decided to try to slip out after curfew to check on his brother less than three miles away.
Halfway there, at about 6.30pm, three Russian soldiers armed with machine guns emerged from the woods and accused him of giving Russian locations away to the Ukrainian army. He was searched, his hands were tied behind his back and a sack was roughly put over his head.
Read Daniel Boffey’s full article here: “Ukrainian man tells of days of torture at hands of occupying troops”
Animals at the Kharkiv Feldman zoo are being evacuated following earlier reports that some would have to be euthanized due to transport issues associated with Russian shelling.
Earlier today, Alexander Feldman, owner of the zoo, said that large animals at the Kharkiv Feldman zoo, located in the city of Lisne, would have to be put down as their cages were destroyed from shelling.
Dnipro deputy mayor Mykhailo Lysenko later confirmed that the animals would be evacuated instead, reported BBC reporter Myroslava Petsa.
Dnipro deputy mayor Mykhailo Lysenko says evacuation issue of Kharkiv Feldman zoo is sorted, meaning its animals won’t get euthanised.
Earlier the zoo owner Alexander Feldman said that the big animals would have to be put down because their cages were destroyed by RU shelling.— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) April 5, 2022
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, is calling on Russian forces to share reports about “atrocities” committed by their troops in Ukraine, reports Reuters.
In a video message, Johnson appealed to Russian troops to share stories about what was being done in Ukraine, specifically talking about atrocities in Bucha, Irpin and other parts of the country.
Johnson said:
The atrocities committed by Russian troops in Bucha, Irpin and elsewhere in Ukraine have horrified the world … The reports are so shocking, so sickening, it’s no wonder your government is seeking to hide them from you … Your president knows that if you could see what was happening, you would not support his war.
Johnson, who also encouraged Russians to use virtual private networks (VPNs) to access independent information on the war, added:
And when you find the truth, share it. Those responsible will be held to account. And history will remember who looked the other way … [in Russia] Your president stands accused of committing war crimes. But I cannot believe he’s acting in your name.
The US treasury department imposed sanctions today on a Russia-based darknet market and a cryptocurrency exchange, reports Reuters.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Tuesday on a Russia-based darknet market site and a cryptocurrency exchange that it said operates primarily out of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The sanctions against Russia-Based Hydra and currency exchange Garantex, published on the Treasury Department’s website, “send a message today to criminals that you cannot hide on the darknet or their forums, and you cannot hide in Russia or anywhere else in the world,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
The deputy prime minister of Ukraine said today that an International Red Cross (ICRC) convoy is still not able to reach the city of Mariupol after being blocked yesterday, reports Reuters.
Iryna Vereshchuk confirmed that the convoy has still not been able to reach the besieged city.
Vereshchuk added that people currently in Mariupol are still only able to leave by foot or car as larger efforts to evacuate civilians have failed.
Yesterday, Vereshchuk reported that Russian forces were blocking an evacuation convoy being escorted by the International Committee of the Red Cross in the eastern town of Manhush.
A ICRC spokesperson confirmed Vereshchuk’s account, adding that it was not a hostage situation.
The governor of the city of Zaporizhzhia said today that up to 20 people have died in some villages currently under Russian occupation, reported Reuters.
Speaking on national television, governor Oleksandr Starukh said:
You had a village of 120 people – 15, 17, 20 people died. If you compare that proportionally to Bucha, it’s the same loss, maybe even more.
Starukh was referring to civilian killings in the town of Bucha, with many calling the atrocities evidence of war crimes.
Starukh did not name specific villages or provide evidence of more civilian killings.
Catch up
It is 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand now:
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given the UN security council a harrowing account of atrocities in his country and demanded that Russian leaders “be brought to justice for war crimes”. The Ukrainian president called for an international tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after the second world war, speaking of Russian forces: “There is not a single crime that they would not commit there.”
- Ukrainian human rights ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova, said between 150 and 300 bodies may be in a mass grave by a church in the town of Bucha. She did not say how the authorities had reached the estimate of the number of victims in the mass grave.
- Displaced residents of Bucha should not yet return to their homes because there are still mines in the area after Russian troops withdrew from the devastated Ukrainian town, its mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, said. Fedoruk said about 3,700 civilians had stayed in Bucha, which had a pre-war population of about 37,000, throughout the occupation by Russian troops.
- India’s permanent representative to the UN, T.S. Tirumurti, condemned the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and called for an independent investigation. Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, also strongly condemned Russia’s “war crimes” in Ukraine in a statement intensifying Israel’s criticism of Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the evidence from Bucha shows “a deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities” by Russian forces. “The reports are more than credible. The evidence is there for the world to see,” he told reporters.
- Almost two hundred Russian diplomatic staff have been expelled from European countries this week in a direct expression of governments’ outrage at the killings of Ukrainian civilians revealed as Moscow’s military forces left. In what amounts to one of the biggest diplomatic breakdowns of recent years, 206 Russian diplomats and embassy staff have been told since Monday they are no longer welcome to stay by governments in Italy, France, Germany and elsewhere.
- The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the EU is proposing new sanctions against Russia, including an import ban on coal worth €4bn (£3.3bn) per year. The package will also include a full transaction ban on four key Russian banks, a ban on Russian vessels and Russian-operated vessels from accessing EU ports, as well as targeted export and import bans.
- The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Nato and G7 foreign ministers meeting on Wednesday and Thursday will discuss the delivery of advanced weapons to Ukraine. Ammunition, medical supplies and “high-end” weapons systems would also be discussed, he added.
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, today. I will now hand the blog to my colleague, Gloria Oladipo. Thank you for reading.
The US and its allies will impose a new round of sweeping Russia-related sanctions tomorrow, a source familiar with the planned announcement told Reuters.
The package will include a ban on all new investments in Russia, an increase of curbs on financial institutions and state-owned enterprises in Russia, and targeting Russian government officials and their families, according to the source.
The sanctions will “impose significant costs on Russia and send it further down the road of economic, financial, and technological isolation”, the source said.
They aim to “degrade key instruments of Russian state power, impose acute and immediate economic harm on Russia, and hold accountable the Russian kleptocracy that funds and supports Putin’s war”, the source said.
Source: This post first appeared on The Guardian
